Admonish the Sinner

Twenty Third Sunday in Ordinary Time Year A

Minding our own business seems to be a useful thing, a most basic survival skill. We’ve been taught since young: if you see a fight, walk away. If you see trouble brewing or coming over the horizon, walk away. If you see your colleague engaging in something illegal, walk away. If you hear someone spewing lies and untruths, walk away. Tell yourself: “it’s not your fight. Just walk away!” As pragmatic as this piece of advice may sound, is this really what we are supposed to do? Yes, in the name of self-preservation, it may be the best option. But in the name of Christ and our moral duty to our neighbour, walking away betrays a lack of charity. As the old adage erroneously attributed to the Irish philosopher Edmund Burke goes, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing,”

Minding our own business or shirking our social responsibility is as old as Cain. When interrogated by God as to the whereabouts of his brother whom he had murdered, Cain’s answer has become a rallying cry of all those who sought to avoid sticking your nose into other people’s affairs: “am I my brother’s keeper?” This question is ludicrous since he was fully aware that he was responsible for his brother’s death. In the first reading, God gives this warning to Ezekiel: “If I say to a wicked man: Wicked wretch, you are to die, and you do not speak to warn the wicked man to renounce his ways, then he shall die for his sin, but I will hold you responsible for his death. If, however, you do warn a wicked man to renounce his ways and repent, and he does not repent, then he shall die for his sin, but you yourself will have saved your life.” In short, we would not be faulted if the other refuses to heed our warning but God would hold us accountable if we fail to issue that warning in the first place.

Our social responsibility to our neighbour is spelt out in the third spiritual work of mercy. It is one that few of us like to engage in: “admonish the sinner.” In fact, many today erroneously believe the opposite - that it is an act of mercy to bite our tongue and refrain from correcting others.

But our Lord in today’s Gospel passage lays down clear steps in engaging in fraternal correction. First, we do it privately instead of publicly. Something which is hard to do in an age of social media, public shaming and trolling. Second, if a private meeting fails to resolve the issue, bring in others for mediation. Lastly, if this still does not work, submit it to the adjudication of the community. When even this last step of reasoning and conciliation fails, that person should be treated like “a pagan or a tax collector.”

Many would construe this as a command to excommunicate the person. But let us consider how our Lord dealt with the pagans and tax collectors. He came to bring the gospel to them, heal them, reconcile and save them. Even should this last point be deemed a form of excommunication, the Church teaches that excommunication is not meant to be punitive but is regarded as an act of charity and a means of saving the soul of the person by demonstrating the eternal consequences of his action. Should a person die in mortal sin, he would be eternally separated from God. Excommunication gives a taste of this.

It is important to note that the Lord refers to the person as “your brother.” This highlights the fact that admonition is best done in the context of an established relationship. A person is much more likely to listen to a trusted friend or relative, rather than a street preacher holding a sign that says: “Repent! Sinners go to Hell!” While the message might be the same and true, it does not mean it will be effective. The question is not whether a billboard that says, “Hell is Real” is true (which it is); the question is, “what is the most effective method of ‘admonishing the sinner’ in the modern world?”

Saint Paul echoes these words when he writes, “If any one refuses to obey what we say in this letter, note that man, and have nothing to do with him, that he may be ashamed. Do not look on him as an enemy, but warn him as a brother” (2 Thessalonians 3:14). St Paul is reminding us that we need to look upon someone you admonish as a “brother” and not an “enemy.” Sometimes it is easy to see certain sinners inside and outside the Church as “enemies” and we make it our mission to “correct” them. We do not embark on our mission in a spirit of fraternal charity, but we do so as if we were going to war. To admonish the sinner is not to belittle or humiliate the person, but rather to alert him to the danger of a sinful course of action. It is rooted in love, not pride.

The obligation remains for us both to admonish sinners and to accept admonishment ourselves. So remember, to admonish the sinner begins by admonishing oneself. After all, we are all sinners. Humility is the virtue by which we recognise our sinfulness and our weakness, thus realising that we ourselves depend upon God's mercy to forgive us our sins and upon His grace to strengthen us to resist sin in the future.

To admonish others effectively, there are two other points we must keep in mind. First, we must practice what we preach. In other words, we have to be working at striving for holiness and avoiding sin in our own lives if we expect others to do the same. Our words have little value if we are perceived as hypocrites – not matching words to action. The second point is to avoid the terrible attitude of self-righteousness with its judgmental view of others. Self-righteousness puts a person into the mindset of the Pharisees who were quick to condemn sin in others but overlooked it in themselves. To carry out this work of admonishing the sinner, a person must have a sense of compassion for human weakness, and we can only learn that by recognising our own weaknesses. This requires humility and honesty.

We must remember that the goal is not to tell others how terrible they are; this is, after all, a work of mercy. Neither is the goal to win an argument or to feel superior. Rather, the goal is to win the sinner back from a destructive path, to announce the forgiveness of sins available to all who repent. The goal is salvation. Even greater than all our bodily needs, is the spiritual need to be set free from sin and receive the life of God. This is why admonishing the sinner is so important. To admonish sinners is to call lovingly to those in danger and draw them back from the edge of the abyss. To avoid doing this would only betray our real intention - we cannot bear the backlash that sometimes comes when we warn people who do not want to be warned. But if we yield to this fear, we are showing that we love ourselves too much and do not love God and others enough.